


When You Weren’t Ready To Live; You Were Prepared To Die

by TheDarkLordChaos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Existentialism, Gen, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, I’m not sure if it’s happy but it’s not sad, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape Needs a Hug, and that’s only implied through knowledge of canon, but really that’s just because Harry does his weird dying before living again thing, i know it says major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkLordChaos/pseuds/TheDarkLordChaos
Summary: Severus was ready to die; how it happened was of no matter, but Harry, always stubborn even as a child. He managed to get to Severus first. Severus loathed the word savior, even if it had been he whom Harry was saving; he had not needed saving, and now he had to help Harry save the Wizarding world.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Severus Snape
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	When You Weren’t Ready To Live; You Were Prepared To Die

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me
> 
> A/N: I originally got this idea from a post by kalkar0s on tumblr. I now have a writing blog there called seven-soul-fragments that focuses on Tomarry, but there are other things if anyone cares to check it out.

“Potter!”

Harry’s shoulder was yanked in a circle, and the sounds of battle warbled as he was pulled behind a tapestry. The hand holding his wand was pushed against the wall and a foreign wand was jabbed into his stomach, and then he was frozen by a silent incantation, eyes fixed on the visage of Severus Snape. Harry felt fury jump up to reside behind his eyes, and his wand burned where it was stuck clenched in his fist; there was a moment of intent that he would have used to kill if he’d been able.

Snape met Harry’s eyes, a grimace twisting his lips, and spoke at a brisk pace, a silencing charm around their temporary cover, and the war grew quiet as if on a distant plain. “Listen to me Potter. I don’t have much time, and I couldn’t risk you cursing me before I could give you the truth.” Snape put his wand to his own temple and drew forth a torrential stream of silver, placing them into a potions phial. “These are memories. You must view them in a pensive; go to the headmaster’s office. The password,” Snape paused, something sad behind dry composure, “is lemon drop. Use your brain. You are in position to use time given to you. Don’t waste it. I know you have intelligence beneath your thick skin.” Snape pulled back after slipping the phial into Harry’s pocket, face strangely without a sneer. “Good luck.” 

Snape turned, tapping himself with his wand. Invisible, he left, and Harry could move again, the sounds of fighting returned, and his mouth ached from how he’d been gritting his teeth. He pulled the phial from his pocket. If Harry had learned anything, it was that things weren’t always what they seemed, and the anger pushed against the walls of his stomach, but Snape was right; he had time, and if there was any chance that the memories he held would give him anything that could help, could provide answers, he would view them, past with Snape aside.

***  
Severus watched the battle from the sidelines, helping the students and the order where he could. From a distance he saw Colin Creevey fall to a stunner and there was nothing Severus could do to stop the final green curse. Severus had hope that Harry would view the memories. Harry had always been an impulsive child, hard headed, and incredibly stubborn, but he also held restraint, intuition. If Severus had known Harry better, he knew he would have been bursting with pride; as it was, he found himself instead mourning what could have been. Severus saw the mark activate before he felt the burn, and he knew the Dark Lord was calling.

***

Harry pulled himself from the pensieve disoriented and dizzy, cheated at having his mother’s happiness served on a platter before being taken away so quickly. Dumbledore’s office stood dark and morbid as it had but a year or so ago, and Harry half expected Snape’s patronus to bound out from the corner of the room, animated with joy fueled by misery. This is what it came down to, Voldemort, himself, and one curse, a curse that conquered healthy hearts, and sped the final toll forward without heed to the damage of lost time. He closed his eyes and thought of the sun and phoenix song, thought of Fawkes on his perch, Dumbledore in his chair, and Harry looked at the portrait that should have held the old headmaster before he walked to the door of the office with resignation settled between the gaps of his bones. There was one more person he still had to talk to. Like mentions of mosquitoes on skin, Harry could feel Death’s call.

***

Personal call during such a chaotic time didn’t bode well to Severus; whatever he had been prepared for, it had to be this. He had protected Harry for as long as he could, but now it was time to pass the torch. Exhaustion slept on his skin but he approached the Whomping Willow despite it, fear tugging at his bones.

“Snape! Professor.”

Shocked relief curled itself around Severus’s spine and he turned. “Potter, you shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.” Severus glanced toward the Willow and he knew that Harry had done the same.

“No, but I imagine it isn’t for you either. I can feel him. If you go in there, I doubt you’ll come back out.”

“I am one of the Dark Lord’s trusted.”

“You don’t understand, he’s excited, murderous.”

Severus scoffed. “That’s his constant state of being.”

“There’s a focus this time though, and it’s you. Don’t go in; you won’t come out.”

“I was prepared for this outcome, Potter.”

Harry raged forward, angry desperation pouring forth in fury and stubborn sadness. “Yeah? Well you know what? I’m not. You aren’t dying tonight Professor. I’m tired of people leaving and I’m not going to let anyone else die because it’s the right thing to do, or, or because they think it’s the only thing left to do! There are bloody well things left to do Professor Snape, and I need your help. There’s a task Dumbledore left me, but I didn’t know it would be like this. That it had to end like this.”

Heaviness settled in him and Severus recognized the tug of obligation and responsibility. “What is this task?”

“Sir… do you know what horcruxes are?”

Horror, it spun it’s blunt edged knife in hand and climbed with crawling fervor up his ribcage like a shark after a minnow, and something in Severus’ stomach sank until his feet felt heavy with the weight of it. “That’s what you are. He made more.”

“Yes. There’s only one left though, myself aside: Nagini, and if I’m right, I won’t be able to kill her before Voldemort kills me.”

“Then what?”

“Sir?”

“After the war, you’ll be hailed a hero, a martyr, and I’ll be tossed into Azkaban for my crimes. The world doesn’t listen to traitors.”

Harry looked angry again. “You’re willing to do it anyway. You’re willing to do it and bugger the consequences. You were even willing to die, and die painfully. You would face Azkaban and rot for all that you’ve done for this world, good and bad.”

Had Severus not been so woefully trained to battle his own emotions he could have wept at the understanding, but he was, so instead he kept his eyes on Harry’s, no flinch and no reaction. Reactions could be dangerous. “You are doing the same. You’ve simply had less time to do it.”

Harry smiled, some part of him a boy, still young and scared shaking at the bars of a cell behind his eyes, and Severus ached.

“Fair trial.”

“What?”

“Fair trial. Turn in your memories of this if you have to, but go to Ron and Hermione, tell them first. Ron and Hermione know everything I know, but you’ve always protected us, even when we condemned you. Please, would you protect them?”

“You, Potter. I protected you; my vow was to you, no one else.”

“No Professor.”

“What?”

“You won’t convince me that you were so selfish. Even now you fight for everyone but yourself, which is far beyond what anyone has to do, or even should do. You aren’t the same man you were when you asked Dumbledore to save my mum. Maybe you weren’t even that man then; you loved her, and we protect those we love. You may have vowed to protect me in my mother’s name, but I know you watch the students. You keep them safe. Keep my friends safe? Here.” 

Harry lifted his pouch from around his neck and placed it around Severus’s own, and then handed Severus his wand. Severus took it, astonished.

“I won’t need a wand where I’m going. I may need to die in order to finish this war, but you don’t. So take care of my stuff will you? Tell Ron and Hermione that Harry sent you because he knows the truth about your position in this war: tell them you know about Nagini. They’ll listen. Also, tell them that they really just need to snog already and everyone already knows that they want to. Tell the Weasleys that I love them, and that they’re family: I never really had one of those before them. Remind Ron about that one time I beat him in chess, and Hermione about that one book I’ve read more times than her; remind them that they’re wonderful friends, that I’m so sorry, and I’ll miss them.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Harry laughed, sounding lackluster, and a bitter taste made its way into Severus’s mouth, and his heart, rooted to the memories of a happy little boy that made the Quidditch team in his first year by breaking the rules, leapt up with indignation, screaming with every pump of blood and every second of life that should have been Harry’s, would have been Harry’s, if only there wasn’t a scar on his forehead, if only Harry hadn’t been Harry.

“You’re just going to have to be the reader of my will sir, and I want them to trust you. Help them, and they’ll help you, I promise.” Harry swept past Severus before pausing. “And sir?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

Severus didn’t know what to say to fully acknowledge all the things he wanted to, or how to apologize for all the things he was sorry for, so instead he just nodded and said: “You’re welcome.” And Severus let Harry press the notch on the Willow, slide into the tunnel to the shack, and go forth to his death without another word, because there wasn’t anything coherent left to be spoken by either of them.

***

The Dark Lord lay on the ground, and the sight was entirely too vivid, like the color had been sucked from the mouth of the world like a dementor taking a soul, before it was given back with a breath used to cause death; Voldemort’s limbs were white and patchy like they’d been sewn on and his veins wound around his head like threads darker than the original fabric. Severus had always imagined that blood would play a prominent role in the Dark Lord’s final pose, but there was nothing but empty eyes that gave evidence to the fact that Voldemort was dead. Harry stood over the body, a lion victorious about his meal, and Severus saw in his mind Harry, leaning over Voldemort, teeth sharp and ready to take the plunge for a bite. Severus stepped forward, closer and closer until he was at Harry’s side, and he looked into the Dark Lord’s eyes, overly red like apples dipped in blood, lacking any power or greed, and still, so still; Severus thought he might cease to breathe himself at how bizarre it all was. Beside him Harry shuddered in what was an exhale, shaking in his clothes like a white cloud in a storm, small and unsteady, but undeniably present. Harry was alive and it was only in his mind that Severus had ever allowed himself to dream of this moment; Harry was alive, and so was Severus, and he had never thought that this would be a real moment capable of passing him by, a moment possible to be taken for granted. Severus breathed slow and deep, reaching into himself and understanding the miracle of his existence, a working body and a beating heart, seeing things so vividly that he thought the air would be stolen from his chest; he looked at the body of Voldemort, a monster given the gift of skin and bone and brain, Tom Riddle, dead first by his own hand, and then again by his own foolishness, and the last by his arrogance and his mistakes.

Harry stood, evidence of life, and Severus stood rotten beside him, a death mark on his own arm, enhanced by tragedy and cold blooded sorrow. The sun peeked through the cloud cover and Severus felt his throat close in a sort of retch as he clawed his nails down his arm; when he pulled them away he expected them to come back black like he’d scratched charcoal, and he felt furious for the lack of evidence it left, as if it could pretend innocence. It mocked him with its innocuous permanence, but Harry took Severus’s arm, pressing into the mark with a touch that was gently firm, and grinned something broken like he only had half a heart.

“You can still feel the pulse.”

Severus aborted the urge to pull away, feeling tired. “Of course you can. It’s my arm.”

“Yes, it’s your arm. Don’t forget that you still stand, living of your own accord. The mark isn’t what makes you.” Harry pulled back, weary. “What do you think?”

Severus sneered. “Of which part?”

“Everything I guess. He’s dead.” 

Harry sounded disbelieving, and Severus didn’t blame him.

“He is.”

“We’re free.”

Severus touched a hand to the mark and Harry slapped it away.

“Stop it sir.”

They stood in silence for a moment.

“What are you going to do?” Severus asked.

“Well, I was thinking that we’d hold a service, a big one, make a sort of memorial for everyone.” Harry’s eyes went to Voldemort again. “Even him, he died too, more times than anyone else really. He was so scared of reaching death that he never realized he’d already been there.”

“He was arrogant.” Said Severus.

“Yes, and he was misguided. He was brilliant.”

Harry looked out over the lake and Severus followed his gaze.

“I wonder where he’s been, in his life, here on these grounds; Hogwarts was his only home. I wonder what he loved most about this place before it got lost in everything else.”

“The Dark Lord is a violent sociopath, Potter. He was never an angel.”

“No, but he was an orphan, and he was a boy full of magic in an unfamiliar world that had the potential to bow to his power. He took advantage, but he murdered; he nearly defeated a population that his followers made only a fraction of; it’s sad how he existed isn’t it? His legacy, his power, that was his world.”

Severus scoffed, but he stared into Voldemort’s vacant eyes and pondered. “I forget that he was a person.”

“I want to bury him. I meant it when I said I wanted him to be a part of the memorial.”

“He doesn’t deserve a burial.”

“Yes he does. He won’t get any place of honor, he’ll just be another name in a crowd. It shows his mortality; it recreates him as another man made of terrible choices. He didn’t have empathy when he lived, so he’ll have it now, through others. I want people to understand him, and I want them to grieve him for his decisions, and I want for them to know how much more human he was for them.”

“He would hate it.”

Harry smiled a sharp thing that had the potential to be deadly, but was instead filled with satisfaction. “Yes, he would.”

***

The burial of Lord Voldemort passed without much fare; he was placed beneath the dirt along with thousands of others, another casualty of war, his name lost on a plaque among hundreds. 

Severus avoided the memorial site most days; buried in the depths of his quarters he would sit. He had given the headmaster’s office back to Minerva, and after she had tried to curse him on sight, Harry had stuck close to him for a few days to ensure the everyone understood that he was good, that he was okay; Severus had sacrificed everything, Harry had said, and Severus was a good man, Harry had said. Severus didn’t feel good, and he didn’t feel alive, but he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead and for some reason that was unexpected; dying had never been the plan, but Severus had been ready. He was still ready. Harry didn’t need protecting anymore; that was blatantly obvious with how much Harry was protecting Severus. In the halls, people would whisper in Severus’s wake without care to what he heard. In fact, just the other day, Harry had needed to intercept a mob of students from shouting abuse at him as he passed in the halls. Harry said it would get better after the trial, but Severus wasn’t sure he wanted it anyway. He wasn’t sure he wanted much of anything anymore, but to be left alone; so Severus sat in his quarters in silence.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Sir? Professor Snape? McGonagall said you haven’t come out in a few days. Have you been eating?”

Severus wasn’t sure what to think of the implications that Minerva still cared enough to notice his living habits, aside from the fact that she worried too much for her own good. “Go away Potter.”

There was a pregnant pause, and Severus imagined Harry gathering himself for what would inevitably be a battle of wills.

“You need to eat Professor. Either you come out, or I’m coming in.”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?” Harry sounded skeptical.

“Thinking.”

What proceeded was a succession of loud sighs and Severus rolled his eyes. 

“For three days sir?”

“Just because your thoughts are limited to mundane ranges doesn’t mean the same for everyone else.”

Harry laughed clumsy, wild, and loud, and Severus startled at the sound.

“Just come and eat lunch with me Professor, that’s all. You shouldn’t look like a skeleton during your trial. I’ve been told appearance can do wonders for first impressions.”

Severus opened the door, frown prominent on his face, but Harry grinned at him until any reason for unhappiness was temporarily lost on him. 

“Fine.”

“It’ll be a good time; you should see the house elves, they’re quite cheerful.”

“Glory.”

They walked side by side until Harry could no longer handle the silence.

“What’s your favorite place in Hogwarts, Professor?”

“The astronomy tower. And you?”

Harry smiled wide again. “The astronomy tower. Why?”

Severus was annoyed at the irony. “Regulus was a friend, he liked the stars, so I did too.”

“The stars remind me of Sirius.”

Ah the legacy of the Black brothers, how Severus wanted to hate them both so, but Harry’s chest shook something fierce, and Severus realized he was withholding laughter, and resisted rolling his eyes, before he decided he had no reason not to, and did so anyway. 

“Out with it you brat.”

It burst from Harry, just as freeing as before, and Severus watched the lines of Harry’s grin with a wary hope, his own smile pulled from his lips; Harry didn’t need protecting any longer, but he was willing to protect Severus with his testimony, and maybe, he would be willing to teach Severus how to laugh again too.


End file.
